My name is Zoë Colvin and this blog is about pictures and places and books and unusual museums and everything from Z to C (that is, absolutely everything in existence, provided one takes an anarchic view of alphabetical order) Above all, it's an aide memoire for me

Saturday, 30 January 2010

Six Characters in Search of an Author at the Sydney Festival

Thrilled to read in today's SMH that Six Characters in Search of an Author hasn't been selling well. I'm pretty certain it's the same production I saw at Chichester last year. Having read the play at university 25 years ago, I was very excited to see it at last. What a disappointment. I was so disgusted I wrote about it at the time, in the hope of letting off steam. It didn't make me feel any better. Actions do speak louder than words it turns out and what I really needed to do was go and punch Rupert Goold on the nose, but unfortunately we've never been introduced. Anyway here's what I wrote then, in my futile attempt to get 'closure':

Director Rupert Goold describes his method as ‘conceptual buggering around’ but what he has done to Six Characters in Search of an Author is bugger it up. Pirandello’s 1921 play deals with fiction and reality and – particularly poignant so soon after WWI – the immortal nature of fictional characters. Goold ignores this and instead makes the play a vehicle for an examination of the dilemmas of television documentary/docudrama making. Splendid performances from Ian McDiarmid, with his Commedia dell’Arte mask of a face, and Denise Gough, circling the stage on one roller skate, a blonde harpy seeking revenge, cannot disguise the weakness of the resulting production. Despite his trademark moments of gaudy fairground horror, there is no hiding the fact that Goold has trivialised the work. Flashing lights and spectacular onstage throatslashings may be just the thing to bring in audiences though. If so, Goold deserves an Olivier award for crowdpleasing.

Anyway, pleasing to note that throatslashings don't bring in Sydney audiences - and the New Year's fireworks mean they've had enough of flashing lights for a while. So yah boo sucks Mr Goold. (And his latest production at the ENO got utterly trashed, hurray, hurray, hurray.)

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Holding On - a novel

I wrote a novel that the London literary agency Sheil Land tried to sell for me. One publisher thought it was "compelling". Another said, "It’s pacy and gripping, and the plot is great." A third commented that it "is a warm, engaging and easy read", while a fourth considered that, "It is a good story (stories) well told". If you want to see what you think, you can find it here.

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About Me

I wrote a novel, represented by Sheil Land. One publisher thought it was "compelling, but it wouldn’t be easy to categorize – it is somewhere between ‘literary’ and ‘commercial’, and would need to be one or the other to be pitched for successfully in an acquisition meeting." Another said, 'It’s pacy and gripping, and the plot is great, but it lacks that lighter women’s fiction feeling. The writing is undeniably good but I’m not quite sure how I would position it on our list.'A third commented that it "is a warm, engaging and easy read but this ‘middle market fiction’ is a really tough area', while a fourth considered that, "It is a good story (stories) well told, but just missing the X-factor that would make me fall in love with it." I wanted to write an entertaining novel that I would like when I was in the mood for something thoughtful & amusing that I could enjoy without too much effort. If you would like to read it yourself, you can find it at http://cargocollective.com/Unrealities/Holding-On-a-novel.